Beyond source and sink control – toward an integrated approach to understand the carbon balance in plants

2024/02/20 by Arthur Gessler, Arthur Geßler, Roman Zweifel · 71 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Engineering · Environmental Science · #Biochemical engineering #Biology #Carbon dioxide #Carbon sequestration #Carbon sink #Climate change #Ecology #Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies #Economics #Ecosystem #Engineering #Environmental change #Environmental science #Natural resource economics #Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics #Plant responses to elevated CO2 #Sink (geography)

paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/nph.19611

published in New Phytologist 242(3), 858-869 (Wiley)

openalex publication_date 2024/02/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

A conceptual understanding on how the vegetation's carbon (C) balance is determined by source activity and sink demand is important to predict its C uptake and sequestration potential now and in the future. We have gathered trajectories of photosynthesis and growth as a function of environmental conditions described in the literature and compared them with current concepts of source and sink control. There is no clear evidence for pure source or sink control of the C balance, which contradicts recent hypotheses. Using model scenarios, we show how legacy effects via structural and functional traits and antecedent environmental conditions can alter the plant's carbon balance. We, thus, combined the concept of short-term source-sink coordination with long-term environmentally driven legacy effects that dynamically acclimate structural and functional traits over time. These acclimated traits feedback on the sensitivity of source and sink activity and thus change the plant physiological responses to environmental conditions. We postulate a whole plant C-coordination system that is primarily driven by stomatal optimization of growth to avoid a C source-sink mismatch. Therefore, we anticipate that C sequestration of forest ecosystems under future climate conditions will largely follow optimality principles that balance water and carbon resources to maximize growth in the long term.

Citations

• Why trees grow at night
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